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37 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS SEPTEMBER 2015 Editorial | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2015: AGW/WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events Then it was down to the nitty gritty of the conference with multiple paral-lel symposia on all aspects of gastroin-testinal and liver disease taking place. There were almost 1,200 abstracts for delegates to feast their eyes on. The posters were not separated by society so poster presenters found themselves rubbing shoulders with members from other societies. Delegates took advantage of the chance to interact with the authors during the lunch hour and networked with like-minded colleagues. From Tuesday through Thursday at DDF 2015 there were lunchtime poster judging rounds conducted by AUGIS, ACPGBI, BAPEN, BASL and BSG committee members. Each and every poster was judged so authors got the chance to showcase their research and obtained feedback from experts in their field. There were also posters of distinction, exhibition posters and video present-ers had tablets to show their videos to interested delegates. The Program Committee arranged integrated sessions between societ-ies on each day of the conference and delegates all came away with a better appreciation of what it is like for our colleagues when we call upon their services or ask for their advice. If judgement is to be made on attendance, then a busy confer-ence through to the last day suggests success. DDF 2015 was also our first attempt at a paperless conference augmented by the use of social media to increase delegate interaction (using a ‘Twitter Faculty’ to promote discus-sion and dissemination of session content. For those interested search Shot of ExCel. for #DDF2015 and #ibdintheuk). Looking to future meetings, the principle of holding a federated congress every three years needs to be evaluated by the members of all DDF partner societies. Clearly, commit-ment to another meeting in 2018 now would allow us to build on the collaborative atmosphere of this year and refine and hone the program to reflect both the integrated nature of the conference and the needs of individual partner societies. The desire to continue to work together in a col-laborative manner on educational and scientific content must come from the grass roots memberships, not as a top down strategy. I enjoyed the process of chairing the scientific program committee enormously and thank all those in-volved in contributing to DDF2015. Audience shot. Poster area.


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